Monday, June 6, 2011

First Home Visit

Last week, I spent every single day dusting and vacuuming (well, to be perfectly honest, my mom helped with a lot of the vacuuming and mopping and cleaning part) and rearranging and organizing every little thing I could think of. All leading up to Saturday morning... when our licensing worker came out to do our first meeting and home inspection. To say that I was a nervous wreck was the understatement of the century!

Our licensing worker, Andrea, arrived 10 minutes early and I didn't even have time to take one sip of my coffee before she arrived. She was so laid back and relaxed, and on top of that she had a German Shepherd so she was really digging our dogs... which was another thing we were worried about. She went through each room of our house, nodding and smiling. She measured each of the bedrooms. She confirmed that we could definitely put the beds into bunk beds.

In the end, she just went over a little bit of paperwork and asked if we had any questions. She said that she was going to do our interviews at the next meeting, and that it would be our last one and then we would just have to wait for our license to come in the mail and we would be able to be on the waiting list to accept foster children!!

We have a few things left to get, so I'm going to do pictures just to show you what we have picked out for funsies (Jack laughs every time I say that... and yes, I am aware that is not a real word.)

1. A crib (Duh! We had just waited to purchase it because we were so unsure of what kinds of things would need to happen in order to be licensed and if we would really pass and all that paranoid stuff... silly us.)

We thought that a convertible crib would definitely be our best bet, considering the fact that we are open to the ages of newborn to 9 years old, we will be able to cover a lot of bases. This crib also converts to a toddler bed and a day bed and then a full size bed if we so desired. (Obviously, we would need a full size bed, but the back of the crib is a headboard and then front is a foot board. )

(I edited this post to add all the sheets that I picked out that I thought were super cute! )

2. Car Seat
This car seat comes with a travel set, so it has the stroller that the car seat can snap into, and also can be used as a regular stroller without the car seat snapping in. This car seat will accommodate from newborn to 50 pounds and can be used as rear facing for infants and then turned around for front facing for an older child, or after the child we get placed with gets older, whichever.

We picked this set because it's unisex and will not just be very baby-ish it will also be fine for a toddler too.

(This is the convertible car seat that I am thinking about.)

I am really really digging the brown and green and yellow. These things that we have picked are certainly not top of the line, as we are purchasing everything for ourselves and we have a limited budget... but I think they are quality brands that we will be able to trust and will still last for several years to come.

I am kinda feeling the jungle-y theme too. Since Jack and I started trying to get pregnant over 3 years ago, immediately I was drawn to jungle animals. I don't really like the mainstream popular Jungle bedding that is out there right now. I actually have some 1930's reproduction fabric with elephants and giraffes on it that is a mustard-y yellow color and a green print of the animals.... Oh man I LOVE it. Elephants, Giraffes and Hippos are my absolute favorite so I am pretty sure anything that I buy will end up having to do with those if I like the print :)

Like this - totally totally adorable :)

3. Booster Seat
(I don't think I need to post a picture of this one, as they are pretty simple and about $20 whereever you go.)

5. Baby Gates.
Again, self explanatory. One for the top and bottom of stairs, to be used if we have an toddler who is mobile who doesn't know how to climb the stairs safely.

...

Yup... That was IT!

Here I was thinking we would have to buy a locking cabinet for our chemicals... (We have childproof things on the cabinet doors under the sink and that's sufficient.) I had no idea what kinds of things we would need around the house, I was expecting this huge laundry list of things to fix, update or change and that it would take us weeks or even months to get through it all. Nope, she said she recommends a few things but that we are not required to have them, and that it is up to our own discretion.

Andrea very briefly went over the list of the types of children that we were willing to accept into our home, and how many. She said that if we were willing, we can be licensed for 4 children at once if we would like. We said we were willing to take up to 4 siblings if they were in a sibling group... so that would be a crazy adventure. She looked at Jack and said, 'Are you okay with four?' and Jack just laughed and said, 'It's really up to her, I'm not going to be home with them all day!!' LoL!

So, I am so pumped to find out when our next (and last) home visit is. I am so beyond excited to put together the nursery and get all the furniture purchased for that and have it all set up in the room exactly how I had always pictured to. I'm excited for the future and to have kids come to our house that we can love and care for.

I did also ask Andrea what would happen if at some point in the future we decided to pursue domestic infant adoption (which is another program at our agency) and she said that she has had families that do foster care and DIA concurrently, so that is definitely a possibility for us down the line. And for that I am also super super excited.

3 comments:

Yay!!! How exciting! Everything you picked out is super cute! What's the convertible car seat you picked? You just showed the infant travel system... We just took E out of her infant seat and put her in a convertible, turned around- since she is so small.Yeah, children items can get so pricey. Have you thought about hitting up any mom 2 mom sales? I have actually been stalking craigslist for another convertible seat. We have 2, but we like one in each car since Christian often will take Meren on errands with him. So I had to steal the one from his car for now.Anyway- craigslist has some great deals!

We have the same stroller/car seat combo. The stroller goes to 50lbs, not the carseat. Seat is a snugride 30, so up to 30lbs and is rear facing only. All infant "carriers" are rear-facing only. The stroller is a FlipIt, so they can face you...or the world while still in their carrier. Just thought there might be some confusion.

Also, just an additional thought. Our placing agency(foster) provides carseats in the even the child does not come with one. We have one just for preference reasons, not because it's required or needed. I only mention it because it may not even be necessary to have one at this point. Hate to see travel system carrier end up expired and unsued...that stuff is expensive!!!